Delhi’s cheap electricity was never truly cheap. It was deferred. For years, power tariffs remained largely unchanged even as the real cost of generating, transmitting, and distributing electricity steadily increased. That gap didn’t disappear, it was pushed into the future. Now, with over Rs 38,000 crore in regulatory assets set to be recovered, that future has arrived.

What is being presented today as a tariff adjustment is, in reality, the cost of years of ineffective price management coming due, with interest. This is not a sudden shock. It is the result of a long-running policy choice: keeping prices artificially low while allowing underlying costs to build up in the background. Regulatory assets, in principle, are approved expenses meant to be recovered later through tariffs. In practice, they have become a way to defer difficult pricing decisions. The longer the delay, the larger the eventual correction. The current plan is to recover these dues through surcharges spread over several years, even as the government considers subsidies to buffer the immediate impact.

On paper, this may appear balanced. In reality, it shifts costs rather than reduces them. Whether through higher tariffs, surcharges, or taxpayer-funded subsidies, consumers pay either way. This is the central problem with politically managed pricing. It prioritizes short-term affordability over long-term sustainability. Electricity was never truly cheap. The cost was simply deferred. The consequences of that approach are now visible. Because tariffs were not adjusted to reflect costs, regulatory assets grew steadily. Interest accumulated on delayed recovery, further inflating........

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